17-year-old Gagik Grigoryan disappeared in the fall of 2023.
His comrades from the “Left Socialist Action” (LSA) raised the alarm when Gagik was added to the “List of Terrorists and Extremists” by Rosfinmonitoring. However, their attempts to locate him at the time were unsuccessful. In June, Solidarity Zone learned that Grigoryan is being held in Moscow’s Detention Center No. 5 on charges of planning an assassination attempt on a lieutenant colonel of the Russian army.On February 28, 2022 — just four days after the Russian army’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine — Kirill Butylin threw Molotov cocktails at a military enlistment office in Lukhovitsy, a town in the Moscow region. Before the attack, he wrote on the office gates: “I will not go to kill my brothers!” Kirill filmed his action and uploaded the video online along with an anti-war manifesto.
Gagik is originally from Kursk. He opposes Russian aggression in Ukraine and has been politically active from a young age. In the fall of 2022, at the age of 16, he became a member of the board of the Russian Social-Democratic Union of Youth (RSDUY). He also participated in the activities of the Left Socialist Action (LSA).
In a letter from the detention center, Gagik Grigoryan reported that he is accused of planning the assassination of a lieutenant colonel of the Russian army. The charges are based on articles related to a terrorist act (Paragraph “a,” Part 2, Article 205 of the Russian Criminal Code) and possession of explosives (Part 4, Article 222.1 of the Criminal Code) as part of an organized group.
Surprisingly, despite the gravity of these accusations, neither law enforcement nor state media have published any information about the case against Gagik Grigoryan. In our opinion, this may indicate the dubious nature of the charges and the fabrication of the criminal case.
Gagik describes himself as follows:
“My main interests include politics, history, football, and chess. However, I stopped following football events in 2020 (due to certain circumstances that I can elaborate on later), except for major sports events like the recent Euro Cup. Around the same time, I stopped playing football because of COVID-19, although I didn’t play for long—just a year. I was a goalkeeper. I became interested in politics in 2019 and adhere to social-democratic views. I believe that our society lacks democracy and social justice. In 2022, I was elected as a member of the Central Council of the Russian Social-Democratic Union of Youth. In 2023, I assisted the ‘Candidates’ Headquarters’ in conducting municipal campaigns in Krasnodar and Samara. My favorite literary works are Animal Farm and Heart of a Dog.”
HOW TO HELP
Address for letters:
125130, Москва, ул. Выборгская, д. 20, СИЗО-5,
Григорян Гагик Гегамович 19.08.2006 г.р.
It is possible to send letters through the electronic service PrisonMail.Online.
How can I write letters to political prisoners in Russia?
